BACK ROAD ADVENTURE

Drive Over the Lukachukais to a Sandstone Arch on the Navajo Reserve

Photographer David Smith and I sat in a restaurant at Chinle on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the northeast corner of the state and discussed our plans for the following day. Our intention was to drive the north rim of Canyon de Chelly to the vicinity of Tsaile, then head west and north to Lukachukai and over the top of the Lukachukai Mountains to a sandstone arch just beyond the village of Cove and visible from the road. The map indicated all the than the Navajo waitresses in the restaurant where we were having supper? "Oh, that's a rough road," one waitress said. "Big rocks," said another. "You got a truck?" "Not today," I said. "Just an ordinary sedan, but hey, it's red and shiny."

The girls laughed, and one asked, "Are you coming back here after you go over there to Cove?" "Yes." "Well, if we don't see you a "T" with Indian Route 12 (it's about 1.5 miles beyond Navajo Community College, which sits on the right, or east, side of the road). We turned left onto Indian 12 for seven miles to Lukachukai, then turned right at the Thrift Way store onto Indian Route 13, a road that begins on pavement and turns to dirt in about 4.5 miles. At about 9.2 miles on Indian 13, there's a fork where we stayed to the right. The drive over the top of the part of the reservation. It's a small grocery store where in addition to finding milk and eggs, you also can buy things like bag balm for your cows or the soft Pendleton blankets favored by Navajos for special occasions, or tools for use on your loom. But then we were treated to an unusual tour of "the vault" by Darren Tanner, who was the store manager at the time. The vault, which most vis-mountain a narrow route visitors are not likely to see unless they ask about it, leads to a cavelike museum and arts and crafts shop. The structure is a dark five-foot square which you enter through a massive steel door manufactured many years ago by the Mosler Safe Co. in Hamilton, Ohio. Its two rooms, part of the original trading post constructed around 1890, are windowless gray tombs with spotlights focused on ancient ceramic pots and baskets, sculptures, and traThe roads we would travel were fine, but the route over the Lukachukai Mountains was unpaved, and neither of us knew how well it was maintained. "That's the shortest route from here to Cove," I said. "All we can do is try it. If it's not possible in an ordinary car, the worst thing that can happen is that we end up spending an extra day or two trying to figure an alternate route." Smith knew as I did that was far from the worst-case scenario, but it helps to be optimistic. What was the point in thinking about ripped-up oil pans and mufflers scraped off by jagged rocks? We decided our best bet for information on the obscure road over the Lukachukais was to inquire locally. And who would know better Around here tomorrow night, we'll know you didn't make it," she said. Somehow, that wasn't reassuring. Early the next morning, we headed northeast on Indian Route 64, which skirts the north rim of Canyon de Chelly. "Rim" is just the right word forthat passes through red rock cliffs, hillocks of sagebrush and piñon pine, and stands of ponderosas and aspens was a pleasant surprise. While rutted and rocky in places, the road was not impossible with our sedan, though we wished on more than one stretch for a high-clearance four-wheel of the Canyon de Chelly visi-aditional silver and turquoise (ABOVE) The Lukachukai Mountains in northeastern Arizona form a spectaculardrive. The secret to success on this road is to take your time. While it's only 23 miles from Lukachukai to the Red Rock Trading Post on the other side of the mountain, and only 10 of those miles are unpaved, it took us about an hour to drive the whole thing. Smith and I were headed for

58

April

1998

backdrop to the desert sage of the Navajo reservation. (RIGHT) A juniper snag stands in silent contrast to a red rock spire near Cove Mesa.

Cove, but we took a break at the trading post, which on the outside looks like any other such retail business in a remote Navajo jewelry. Most of the ob-jects in these rooms are for sale, but some are only for display. “If anybody shows any in-terest, I ask them if they would like to go back and see the vault,” Tanner said. “There is a little sign out front that says there’s an arts and crafts shop inside, but most people don’t see it.”

Nowadays, because of the condition of the road over the top of the Lukachukai Moun-tains, there isn’t much tourist traffic at the Red Rock Trading Post, but that may change in the next couple of years. Sur-vey crews have already started marking the dirt road for a fu-ture paving project.

“There’s been talk about paving that road since 1944,” Tanner said, “but it really looks like it will happen in the next year or two.” Smith and I left this strange vault in the middle of nowhere and continued on to Cove and the arch. About .6 of a mile north of the trading post, we turned left onto paved Indian Route 33, proceeded for about .4 of a mile then turned left and headed, still on pavement, on to the chapter house (kind of a community center for the area), about nine miles off in a terrain filled with magnificent crimson buttes and long mesas.

At the red-roofed chapter house on the east, or left, side of the road, Alberta King as-sured us that though we could see the imposing sandstone arch — one of several in the area — in the distance across the road, we would be unable to get to it in our shiny red sedan. She made arrangements for a young Navajo rancher, Don Ellison Jr., to take us closer in his high-clearance pick-up truck.

The arch turned out to be only three miles west of the chapter house, but the so-called road was more like a precipitous goat path. Standing in the red dirt in a grove of juniper and piñon pine trees, Ellison looked up at the arch and struggled to translate a Navajo word into English: “We call that ‘rock with a hole in it’ because, I guess, the rock was there first, you know?” Ellison looked at me with a smile. I smiled back, and we both knew there was nothing more to say. His logic was flawless, which is more than could be said for the crater-pocked road that jostled us back to the chapter house.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

To obtain a reservation backcountry permit, contact Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation, P.O. Box 308, Window Rock, AZ 86515; (520) 871-6647. Be aware of weather and road conditions and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water. Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return. Odometer readings in the story may vary by vehicle.